The River’s Breathing, Avon Meadows

My project work for Meadow Arts at Avon Meadows, Pershore is nearing its conclusion. It has taken place almost entirely during the restrictions of the Covid lockdown, which, for a site-based community project, has been a strange challenge. Thankfully, I was able to make a couple of visits to the site to gather materials I needed, speak to a few of the people visiting Avon Meadows and conduct some research. The community workshops will take place online on Meadow Arts’ Instagram Live TV channel, and via Zoom on Saturday 13th March and 20th March respectively. Its been good to make some contact online with people who live locally to the site via the Friends of Avon Meadows. Hopefully, I will make visits in the not too distant future to put my work on display in a local venue.

My artwork is titled the River’s Breathing.

The River’s Breathing, 150cm x 75cm, 3 panel mixed media relief, botanical-dyed paper handmade with reeds and silver birch

It relates to the theme of flooding and the meadow’s role in natural flood attenuation or “breathing space” of the river, alleviating peak flows downstream.   During the pandemic, the Avon Meadows have played a really valuable role as a breathing space for people to get some exercise, some fresh air and enjoy being in nature.

The use of a variety of plant materials in the work touches on biodiversity which is boosted by the seasonal flooding and distribution of nutrients.  I’m interested in the fact that the meadows have an interdependent relationship with humans so that they are both beautiful and useful.

As described in my earlier posts, there were quite a few different processes needed.  After collecting plants, berries, soil and other materials from Avon Meadow, I used reeds and silver birch to make paper.  Then I made dyes and pigments to dye the paper a range of different colours.

I constructed the paper into three panels with just a little support from strips of card.  I like that plant materials and recycled scrap paper can be used to make something that is quite strong and structural – it is 3D and highly textured.

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The River’s Breathing, 150cm x 75cm, paper handmade using reeds and silver birch, dyed with sloes, ivy, birch, alder, hawthorn, meadow grass and rosehips

The design is based on two hydrographs – which shows how water level rises with time during a flood.  The graph or curve with the high peak represents the flow for a river which is unable to escape its channel.  The lower flatter curve represents what happens if the flood is allowed to spread out onto the flood plain.  This lowers the flood depth and also delays the peak so that the impact downstream may be lessened.  So the risk of flooding to properties is reduced. 

Sometimes, I think when I produce an artwork that its creation was beyond my own control.  As if there already exists an infinity of artworks, and what the artist does, by a series of decisions is to filter down the choices until a unique piece of art remains.  Almost as if the work is not mine, but something more communal, that was destined to come into being at some point.  It feels like that with this piece – all the themes, the materials, the process, the place – all seemed to just fall into alignment.

Its been a privilege to have this opportunity from Meadow Arts to come to Avon Meadows and share this artwork.

Now I’m passing the baton on to artists Melanie Woodhead, Kate Raggett and Emma Plover, and I’m excited to see what they make from the site during the Spring and Summer!

Avon Meadows – the creative process begins

After returning with various materials gathered from Avon Meadows (see earlier post from Dec 2020), I was excited to begin the process leading to the creation of an artwork responding to the landscape on the theme of beauty and utility. It would require quite a number of stages.

With the enforcement of further Covid restrictions, Meadow Arts and I reluctantly took the decision to delay public engagement workshops until March and to deliver them online – further details to be announced shortly. We also decided to proceed with making the artwork through December/January so rather than working collaboratively with community groups to help make the paper we needed, I made all the paper myself.

Making paper with reed and scrap paper pulp

I had gathered bundles of reeds and some birch twigs and leaves for making paper in two separate batches. The reeds were already mostly brown and dry, and the pulp I could make from both these types of material would not bind well on their own, so I combined it with pulp made with scrap paper. As Winter is also one of the themes, scrap Christmas card white envelopes came in handy.

Before making the pulp, I boiled the reeds and birch twigs/leaves for a couple of hours with a small amount of soda ash which helps degrade the organic matter leaving cellulose fibre. Take care if using soda ash (washing soda) as it is highly alkaline. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is a safer, lower alkaline alternative.

This is then rinsed several times with cold water to remove the alkali, before pulverising it to break up the fibres. Finally it is blended in an old kitchen blender to a watery pulp.

I made about 20 sheets of paper in each batch using A4 size mould and deckle. Each sheet is transferred to a couching cloth, pressed in a stack to drain and then allowed to dry. Its a slow enjoyable process – but messy with water sloshing about. Normally, I’d be doing this outdoors but it was far too cold! So thankfully I have a lino floor in the studio.

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  Sponging excess water when transferring pulp from mould to couching cloth

Here are some close up images of the finished paper sheets:

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  Silver birch paper

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  Paper made with reeds

In the meantime, I processed some of the other materials to create a series of coloured dyes. I had quite an array of berries, leaves and other materials like alder cones and birch bark.

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  sloes, rosehips, hawthorn and ivy berries

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  alder cones

For each item, I cleaned and then simmered them gently in a small amount of water for 15 mins to an hour to release pigment into the water. In case of using materials that could be mildly toxic, I use only old pans, stirrers and other utensils that are not used for preparing food.

You can dye fabrics in this way, but I was going to be using the dyes for staining the paper I had made. So once the liquid and mulched berries had cooled enough, I poured it out into a jar, strained through a piece of muslin cloth.

When dyeing fabrics, it is necessary to fix the colour to control fading by using a mordant. There are various types of mordant, such as alum, ferrous sulphate or salt, each of which has a different effect on the dye colour and effectiveness of colouration. For my paper, I opted to try using milk – oat milk, in this case, but other milk will work because the protein helps to bind the dye to the paper fibres.

So first of all, I brushed all of the paper with oat milk, allowed them to dry and then brushed them with the dyes. The only dye colour which did not work so well was the meadow grass. Rather than simmer the grass, I simply added some water to the grass in a blender. This came out a beautiful vivid green but the day after it faded to a brown, and mordants didn’t seem to have any effect on this. Green is never an easy colour to prepare as a natural dye, despite the abundance of green plants, and somehow it didn’t really fit with the winter theme.

There was an amazing palette of colours, which, of course, seem to find a natural harmony without me having to try. The berries produced colours similar to their visual appearance whereas materials like the birch (red brown) and alder cones (amber/gold) produced more surprising colours.

It was also interesting to see how certain dyes reacted to changes in pH – ivy berry changed from a pinky purple through to blue and blue/green as conditions went from slightly acidic to slightly alkaline. Something else to play around with to widen the range of colours. Natural dyes will usually grow mould after several days, so in order to help preserve them you can use a clove, vinegar (which may change the colour) or isopropyl alcohol (“rubbing alcohol”).

A natural palette of dyed papers created from Avon Meadows materials

Now I had all the prepared materials ready to commence construction of my artwork … but more about that in the next post.

As an aside and continuing the wintry theme, we had a snow fall just after Christmas. I gathered some to experiment with melting ice dye patterns. This works best on fabric because the melt water can drain through leaving fabulous dye patterns. I used some thick water colour paper sheets and once the ice had melted, puddled and dried, I found lovely intricate marks left by the dye. Worth experimenting again…

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  ivy berry and ivy leaf dyes

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  ivy berry

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  sloe

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  ivy berry

Avon Meadows – Beauty and Utility

I’m thrilled to be one of three creative practitioners commissioned by Meadow Arts to make an artwork and to work with community groups and or schools responding to the seasons and changing environment at Avon Meadows in Pershore.

View of Pershore Abbey

Meadow Arts is working with the Floodplain Meadows Partnership which represents a number of key organisations and is hosted by the Open University, School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences.

Historically, floodplains have been significant for food production provision of hay for feeding animals n winter and as grazing for animals. They are highly fertile due to being nourished by river silts during seasonal floods. And by managing the floodplains, the meadows evolve into wildflower grasslands. The wetlands are also important sites for birds, amphibians, and other wildlife. It is this combination of beauty and utility that is an overall theme for the art project.

There is an excellent website about the site run by the Friends of Avon Meadows, a charity who support the management of the Meadows, which are owned by Pershore Town Council and Wychavon District Council.

My project will cover the Winter months from December through to February, although the public workshops are likely to take place later due to the current Covid restrictions. 

The artwork I am planning to make relates to the themes of flooding and the meadow’s role in natural flood attenuation or “breathing space” of the river, alleviating peak flows downstream.  It will also touch on biodiversity which is boosted by the seasonal flooding and distribution of nutrients.  I will be using plant materials to make paper for my artwork, and I will use dyes and pigments derived from plants, berries, soil and other materials gathered from the Avon Meadows.

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  rosehips

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  ivy

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  hawthorn

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  blackthorn (sloes)

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  alder

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  ivy

I’m looking forward to working with the community on papermaking and dyeing/printing paper using gathered plant materials, and have had some initial discussions with local schools and The Friends of Avon Meadows. 

After an initial visit to Avon Meadows in October to survey what plants I might be able to use, I made my first project visit this week to gather reeds from which to make paper sheets. The reeds (phragmites australis) provide a valuable role in improving water quality in the surface run off from nearby built up areas flowing into the river. I saw that some of the reeds were being harvested to ensure they maintain healthy growth next year. 

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  harvesting of reeds

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I also gathered sloes, rosehips, hawthorn berries, grass, alder cones, ivy berries and some of the rich silty clay from the wetlands.  I left plenty of berries for the birds. I plan to start producing the paper and create a range of dyes/pigments over the next week or so and begin trying out some different options for constructing the final artwork.

The weather was kind, so I could enjoy the fabulous winter colours in the landscape.

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Dramatic skies. On this and during my previous visit, I caught glimpses of herons flying, willow warblers, redwings and snipe.

And already the water was rising across most of the land:

Very appropriately there was plenty of mistletoe in the trees. I’ll continue to post progress updates as the artwork develops. Merry Christmas!